Last Thursdayism (sometimes Last Tuesdayism or Last Wednesdayism) refers to the idea that the universe may have been created last Thursday, or on another day or six thousand years ago, with the appearance of being billions of years old. It is a version of the omphalos hypothesis, and of Bertrand Russell's five minute hypothesis. It suggests that the world was created last Thursday, but with the appearance of age: people's memories, history books, fossils, light already on the way from distant stars, and so forth.

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Proving Last Thursdayism

Last Thursdayism (and any similar idea) can be seen as "hyperomphalisms", extreme forms of omphalist doctrine designed to show the absurdity of it. As such they constitute a sceptical hypothesis of the very existence of past, not just events that occur within it. Bertrand Russell explains the problems with proving that the universe was created, in tact, at a set point in the past in his "five minute hypothesis":

“”There is no logical impossibility in the hypothesis that the world sprang into being five minutes ago, exactly as it then was, with a population that "remembered" a wholly unreal past. There is no logically necessary connection between events at different times; therefore nothing that is happening now or will happen in the future can disprove the hypothesis that the world began five minutes ago.

In all cases we must ask what evidence exists to show that these suppositions may be true - and if no evidence presents itself either way, it can easily be dismissed and we are justified in ignoring them. As such, Last Thursdayism remains as nothing more than an entertaining metaphyiscal hypothesis, albeit one that can aptly highlight the absurdity of some literal Young Earth beliefs

Deceitful God

Last Thursdayism speaks to the character of a god who would perpetrate such deception of false memories and evidence. That is, such a god would be a liar. Such an attribute does not fit with a God who cannot lie, and thus the argument also fails on the grounds that a real god cannot lie, and therefore the argument cannot be true.

Fundies Say the Darndest Things

“”Last Thursdayism is false because I clearly remember events from before Last Thursday. It does not follow that God could have fixed our minds and experiences to make us think we only felt things before last Thursday. For example I have a note with the date on it, "Wednesday, July 15, 2009." This would not be possible if the world was created on "Thursday July 16, 2009."[2]

Recent manifestation

A recent manifestation of Last Thursdayism appeared on the USENET group talk.origins in 1991, as a hyperbolic response to omphalism. It gradually gained popularity, and on August 25, 1996 the FAQ [3] for the Church (its Catechism) was posted to talk.origins by Michael Keane. It is similar to Unicornism or Pastafarianism, and claims that the universe was created Last Thursday by "Queen Maeve the Housecat", who on Next Thursday (Judgment Day) will admit those who were nice to cats to Paradise and damn the unkind, the uncaring, and Creationists to the never-cleaned Eternal Litterbox. Since then the website for Last Thursdayism has become defunct.

Other possible days of creation

It should be noted that in some circles, especially talk.origins, Last Tuesdayism is taken as a schism of Last Thursdayism and is founded on the belief that the world was created last Tuesday but that unlike last Thursdayism, this happens every Tuesday.